Time, it is a cruel taskmaster if you allow yourself to become a slave to it. It marches on and on and no one can stop it. Some days our lives can spin out of control with time being the taskmaster driving us forward in our life that we are not really living. Other days we’ve placed time in its rightful spot, a tool that we can manage and use to accomplish our God-given purpose while here on this earth.

I have come to the determination the “I Can’t Live Without My Planner”. For the last year and half I have been using The Homemaker’s Friend 2014 Daily Planner. And I can honestly say there has been a difference in my life. I am not forgetting things, I am not missing appointments, I am tracking my prayer requests better, my shopping list is not a jumbled mess on scrap pieces of paper. I have projects scheduled for now and in the future and I feel confident that they’ve been mapped out in my planner. My planner goes everywhere with me. I have always been a Type A personality, middle of the road obsessive compulsive, very detail oriented and I thrived on stress. Stress was my drug of choice. I didn’t use real drugs but I used stress in my life to give me a high. I didn’t crave the drama, I craved the stress. As I’ve gotten older and hopefully wiser, I’ve come to the determination that I can’t do it all, all the time. I have to choose what to do and when to do based on my God-given plan given to me by prayer and spending time in His Word. I have to seek Him first and His righteousness before I take that first step or open my mouth. This has been hard for a jump right in all or nothing kind of person. You may ask why I am sharing this with you, well planning has changed me. Planning has allowed me to slow down the roller coaster that is going at the speed of light (time) and see the whole picture with eternity in mind. To not just see the here and now or the moment by moment but to see them as a puzzle piece that is put together in my planner one day at a time.

The 2015 Daily Planner by Sue Hooley of The Homemaker’s Friend is an awesome planning tool. It has everything a beginning planner would need to get started simplifying their life through good planning habits. It is also detailed enough to keep us veteran planners satisfied too. As seen above the 2015 version has a beautiful cover that is laminated to stand up to the wear and tear of everyday use. I carry mine everywhere with me and it has been in my purse, in my tote, back to my desk and home again and the cover still looks like new. I love the fact that each Daily Planner has Scripture throughout it. It has been such a blessing to find a time management product that includes God within its pages. Now don’t get me wrong it is not strictly a religious planner but does contain inspiration within it. The thing that gets noticed the most as I take my Daily Planner with me is how beautiful it is. I get complements, questions all the time. “Where can I get one?”, and “What is it?”. It is beautiful and it makes me feel good to carry it with me.

In the front of the planner is a how-to section by Sue Hooley, this is where you can gain insight and instructions on making your planner work for you, not you work for your planner. An awesome suggestion is to set some time aside daily and weekly to plan. All the sections are the same from year to year which is great because once I familiarized myself with the layout, I fell in love and I return to it over and over again. I love the perforated shopping lists in the back of the planner. You can jot down your grocery list as it pops into your mind and then rip it out to take with you to the store. A great feature that saves time and money and keeps your list together in one place.

Now that I’ve shared a little bit about my life so you can see the benefits of planning I want to share with you a word of wisdom that I’ve learned along the planning road. I’ve had expensive planners (Filofaxes) and I’ve had leather planners, spiral bound planners, ARC planners, etc but no matter what type of planner you have it is no good if you do not commit to faithfully using it day in and day out. So establish a planner habit and watch it change your life.

I hope you have enjoyed this review of my new can’t live without planner and I hope that you’ll stop by Sue Hooley’s website to check out this amazing product. You can click on her website anywhere within this post that her name and website are mentioned.

Until Next Time or if you want to talk planning,

M

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL PROVIDED: I received a copy of this book from the The Homemaker’s Friend for review purposes. I was not compensated for this review, nor was I required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. So please enjoy. This post contains NO affiliate links.